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Gay Saintliness

How
could I possibly ever reconcile [my attraction to other boys] with some
grand, altruistic life purpose?

This
question,
I believe, lies at the heart of the gay vocation in the
world, and of gay spirituality and sanctity more specifically. It
summons us to consider how and why we do what we do, and the reason
that our vocation so often lies in areas of beauty, creativity, and
service.

Much has been written about the fertile manifestations of our
marginality. I will put forth a radical proposition, though it is
historically impervious to proof. I venture to say that a
significant,
if not a predominant, number of male saints have been homosexual,
that
they have struggled with the meaning of same-sex desire in their lives,
most often for the person of Christ, that some succumbed to their
sexual urges, while others chose quite consciously to sublimate their
needs in works of heroic Christian virtue and fortitude.

And,
furthermore, that such needs and desires, as evil, sinful, or
condemnable as they were thought to be by the saints themselves or by
any number of "godly" others, have been the core, fundamental forces
for good, motivating, sustaining, nourishing, and inspiring these great
works.

So writes Donald
Boisvert in his marvelous book Sanctity and Male Desire: A Gay
Reading of Saints (The Pilgrim Press, 224 pages, pb, $22.00)

I added the italics and underlining to emphasize the operative
words in
this passage.

Christian de la
Huerta, author of Coming Out Spiritually: The Next Step,
identifies ten spiritual functions
of gay and lesbian people.

Here's the review of Boisvert's book I wrote for
White Crane Journal #64

Upon first look, Donald Boisvert's
new book Sanctity and Male Desire: A Gay Reading of Saints
seems of
interest primarily to Roman Catholics. The Introduction is about
the place of the saints in Catholic religious education, and the
chapters that follow are about various saints that influenced
Boisvert's own psychological and religious development. Certainly
others raised Catholic will resonate with this book (I certainly did).
But the discussion in the book goes far beyond parochial Catholicism,
and so the main thrust of this review must be to recommend this book to
non-Catholics (and ex-Catholics who'd resist anything even vaguely
related positively to the religion they left behind).

Boisvert is a professor of religion at
Concordia
University in Montreal. He was in the seminary as a young man with the
Blessed Sacrament Fathers, then went on to earn a doctorate in
religious studies as a layman. His previous book was Out on Holy
Ground: Meditations on Gay Men's Spirituality (The Pilgrim Press, 2000,
reviewed in WCJ #48). He was a participant in last year's Gay
Spirituality Summit.

The reverence of the saints in Catholic
devotion is,
to non-Catholics, one of the strangest things about the religion. In
many ways, it's been one of the most regressive aspects, focusing on
superstitions, contrived (and often unbelievable) histories, and
bizarre manifestations of zeal (including all manner of
martyrdoms--some self-brought-on--and outrageous forms of human
torture). Understood in the light of comparative religions, on the
other hand, the reverence of the saints demonstrates the true
universality –indeed, the polytheism--of Catholicity, for many of the
saints represent the importing of local deities, heroes, tribal legends
and myths into Christianity as the religion spread beyond being simply
a sect of Judaism. In this sense, the veneration of the saints shows
Catholicism as a much broader and more inclusive religion than the
Bible-based versions of Christianity that have resisted change since
the text was canonized at Nicaea by the Emperor Constantine. In many
ways, Catholicism is more like Hinduism than it is like Christian
Protestantism. While the saints, of course, aren't incorporated into
the Bible, their stories get at least as much importance in popular
Catholic devotion as the words of sacred writ.

The stories of the saints are teaching
mechanisms by
which particular virtues, talents, life-situations, and manifestations
of zeal are personalized. The various traits and powers of God as
healer, miracle-worker, and wish-granter are personified in the stories
of flesh and blood human beings. Especially for children learning
Christian doctrine, the saints are symbols and demonstrations of
theological propositions and religious concepts much easier to
understand and identify with than the abstractions they represent. They
are role models of the good Christian life.

Donald Boisvert describes with
reverence, but also
with poignancy and appropriate humor, how as a boy he created an altar
and shrine to his favorites, lighting candles before their statues as
part of childhood play. The themes in these saints' lives went on then
to shape his religious and personal maturation--just as they were
supposed to.

The book devotes chapters to some of
these
favorites: Michael the Archangel, Sebastian and Tarcisius, John the
Baptist, Joseph, Paul and Augustine, Francis of Assisi, Dominic Savio,
and more. Except for Michael the Archangel (the Christianization of
Mars, the Roman god of war), Bosivert's saints were actual people. In
each presentation, he explains not only the history or mythos of the
characters, but also the spiritual and religious meaning and the life
model presented. But then he goes way beyond what orthodox Catholicism
would understand--and this is the exciting richness of this book--and
gives what he calls the "gay reading" of the stories.

Central to all manifestations of
so-called gay
spirituality is honesty and frankness about the sexual and erotic
dimensions of life. And that's exactly what Boisvert gives us with his
"gay readings": a personal–and sometimes surprisingly "frank"--analysis
of this secret layer of the stories of his favorite saints.

In the way that the saints represent a
history of
Christianity beyond the foundations in the time of Jesus, Boisvert's
analyses present the sexual layers of the religion that are generally
never acknowledged. The prime example is his discussion of the various
ways Jesus--and Jesus's body--has been depicted in art. God Incarnate
is shown as a beautiful man with, sometimes, a "hot body," even (or
especially) when naked under torture. The “honesty and frankness" are
remarkable. This discussion of Christianity gives gay men a reason to
reconsider the richness of the religion that seems so often inimical to
our concerns.

But the most important argument of the
book is
Boisvert's recognition that the drive to "sanctity" is an essential
part of “male desire" (hence their linking in the subtitle) and of the
social activism of the gay political and cultural movement. Over
and over again, gay politics is about "saving the world," not just
getting one's own--and one's family's--needs met by government. Gay
lives are so frequently focused on beauty, creativity, and service.
Boisvert beautifully captures the gay compulsion to be the best little
boy, the best social contributor, the most successful lover, and
especially the most honest person one can be. It is the drive for
sanctity and integrity that impels us to come out and be openly and
idealistically gay.

I recommend this book to Catholics and
non-Catholics
alike. I want to especially recommend it to those of you who are
annoyed with or estranged from Catholic upbringing. I promise you,
you'll be surprised and pleased and even possibly inspired and
spiritually justified by Donald Boisvert's blending of religion and
eroticism. He tells truths about our human psyches that most
religionists don't acknowledge. For that reason alone, this book adds a
new dimension to gay spirituality.

Toby Johnson, PhDis
author of nine books: three non-fiction books that apply the wisdom of
his
teacher and "wise old man," Joseph Campbell to modern-day social and
religious problems, four gay genre novels that dramatize spiritual
issues at the heart of gay identity, and two books on gay men's
spiritualities and the mystical experience of homosexuality and editor
of a collection of "myths" of gay men's consciousness.

Johnson's book
GAY
SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of
Human Consciousness won a Lambda Literary Award in 2000.

His GAY
PERSPECTIVE: Things Our [Homo]sexuality Tells Us about the Nature
of God and the Universe was nominated for a Lammy in 2003. They
remain
in
print.

FINDING
YOUR OWN TRUE MYTH: What I Learned from Joseph Campbell: The Myth
of the Great Secret III tells the story of Johnson's learning the
real nature of religion and myth and discovering the spiritual
qualities of gay male consciousness.